Successful Mentoring. It helps Somali-Bantu community adapt to new culture

John Berry/The Post StandardTejas Rane of Syracuse, left, works with Ibrahim Rasulo, 9, of Syracuse during a Somali-Bantu community tutoring session held at Dr. King Elementary School. Adan attends third grade at Hughes Elementary School. Rane is a controls engineer for Black Clawson.

When Jeylani Noor moved to the United States in 2004, he spoke only a few words of English. The native of Somalia, then 16, had difficulty understanding his classmates and teachers in school. But now Noor is fluent in English and studies human services at Onondaga Community College. He wants to become a social worker.

The source of this turnaround? Noor credits a little-known tutoring program organized by the Somali-Bantu community, the city school district and Syracuse University.

“The program was very, very very helpful,” Noor said. “They taught me a lot a lot of things. Where I am right now is very good.”

The Somali-Bantu Community Based Mentoring Program is an effort to help students learn English, do their homework and adapt to American life and culture. Organizers match more than 100 Somali-Bantu students, ranging from pre-kindergarten to high school, with a tutor, usually a Syracuse University student.

The program meets Saturdays at the Dr. King Elementary School, and conducts special sessions for high school students on Monday and Thursday. Lessons focus mostly on literacy and math.

“The kids are wonderful,” Syeisha Byrd, director of engagement for Hendricks Chapel at SU, said of the Somali-Bantu students. “They’re really trying hard to achieve their goals. Some of them go to school five days a week, then come to our program three to four days a week.”

Organizers attribute much of the program’s success to SU volunteers from a variety of sources. Byrd’s office at Hendricks Chapel pitches in, but so does the Mary Ann Shaw Center for Public and Community Service, SU Literacy Corps, School of Education and African Student Union.

Each SU student makes a semester commitment to the program, usually for about three hours a week. About 100 students help out each semester. The program accepts any student willing to commit, volunteers from diverse majors — from engineering to international studies to pre-med.

Byrd said the one-on-one tutoring gives SU students an incentive to return.
“They’re building a sustainable relationship,” she said. “The kids look forward to seeing them come back each week.”

She estimated as many as 70 percent of the students return after the first semester.

“I thought after one semester maybe they’d never come back,” said Haji Adan, one of the program’s organizers. “Now we turn away students because we’re full.”

Adan, who came up with the idea for the program, moved to Syracuse in 2006. He saw that the children of the more than 100 Somali-Bantu families in the city were struggling in school and in adapting to the language and culture. So he sat down with community leaders and devised a solution.

At first, the program was run out of a house on Syracuse’s North Side. The site was so small organizers had to turn away half of the 100 students who registered. About a year later, the Syracuse City School District pitched in, allowing the program to use the Dr. King school on Saturdays.

Adan, who runs the program with community member Abdullahi Ibrahim, said parents used to force their children to come.

“Now the students can’t wait for it to start,” he said.

As for Jeylani Noor, he said the program inspired him to go into social work. Now he helps out with the program on the weekends.

“I think the students attending now will be successful, too, if they work hard,” he said.